UNGA78: Tinubu sets up poverty
…UNHCR applauds move poverty alleviation key to achieving SDGs goals – Sani
…we cannot solve the problem alone – NSA
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, New York
In order to fully engage in the field of creative fundraising, President Bola Tinubu established the Presidential Humanitarian and Poverty Alleviation Trust Fund for Nigeria, with 30% of the funding expected to come from the Federal Government and the remaining expected from the United Nations, donor agencies, philanthropic individuals, and the private sector.
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu, made the disclosure Friday in New York at a high level meeting on building partnership for durable solutions at the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), which has ministry hosted.
She said: “The President has approved the Presidential humanitarian and poverty alleviation Trust Fund for Nigeria, and this will have several governing caders with a structure that will show accountability and transparency.
“Thirty percent of the fundings expected in this trust fund will be coming from the Government of Nigeria, and is expected that the rest of this funding come from other nations, the United Nations, donor agencies, philanthropic individuals, private sector, who we want to bring fully into the space amongst other forms of innovative fundraising.
“The essence is for us to be able to adequately address the issues which we face on ground as a matter of urgency. I’m sure we already know that the president declared a state of emergency on food security in Nigeria, he equally had a state of emergency on other things like humanitarian crisis and our ability to provide durable solutions.
“Finally, I want to say that Nigeria is counting on the support of the international community, development partners, donors and friends that are in the room today to give us the right network, to attract the right supports to really address the needs that we have in Nigeria. And as we make plans to come in and address this need, what must be key at the back of our minds is providing durable solutions. We must be able to address education for these persons, we must be able to address their livelihood, we must be able to address their reintegration back into communities, we must be to address their resettlement including provision of proper shelter for them to stay in. We must be able to address their GPV needs amongst other things and we’re counting on your support.”
Edu said the government is seeking urgent international support to address human and climate-induced displacement and poverty in the country.
She said: “Lots of commitment is needed at all level to see that Nigeria is able to overcome its challenges especially as it has to do with persons who are affected by humanitarian crisis, where we have about 16 million registered persons that are affected by humanitarian crisis.
“And suffice to say that this number might actually be doubled because there are persons who are affected but they are not registered and they live within communities and have not come forward for the formal registration.
“So, we might be dealing with close to 35 million persons that are directly or indirectly affected by humanitarian crisis.
“I would want to state a couple of things. The first point is that Nigeria, we need as a country to have that support from the UN at all levels to see that we can meet the needs of our citizens.
“We also need the support of all the UN agencies that are in the room and those who are operating in Nigeria, even those who are not operating in Nigeria.
“It’s time for you to put boots on the ground and support Nigeria all the way and we need to do this in a more coordinated and strategic manner.
“Secondly, we don’t want to deal with emergencies or humanitarian crisis as well, emergencies that will come and go within six months or maximum one year. We need to start facing the reality. Persons have been displaced internally, refugees are in our country, over 89,000 refugees and several other persons of concern that are vulnerable.
“The question is, once we have people who are exposed to humanitarian crisis, we’re tempted to believe that it will soon be over and so they will be going back to their homes and back to where they came from. But that’s not the reality on ground.
“We have children that are in Maiduguri today, which is Borno State that have been there for the last eight years. We have children that were born into that situation, and they have continued to leave in tarpaulins or makeshift buildings, the kind not even be able to house any of us in this room for even six hours.
“We have families that do not have access to quality health care services. We have families that do not have access to water and sanitation. We have people who do not even have the status of having their daily meals even once a day in Nigeria, and these are real situations on ground.
“We’ll try to represent some of this in our pitch deck, which we have here today. And we will be sharing this out so that you can see the situation on ground in Nigeria and how best we can intervene or what is most important that what we should take out of this meeting is that we need that urgent support as a country.”
The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, who welcomed the setting up of the trust fund, said humanitarian action alone cannot resolve the problems
but multi sectoral actions and multi sectoral partners and well coordinated approaches would save lives.
Also speaking at the event, the Governor of Kaduna State, Uba Sani spoke of his administration’s effort to alleviate the suffering of the under-served and the vulnerable in the state, emphasizing the contributions of Qatar and Kuwait so far.
According to him, the Qatar government is spending $32 million to provide shelter, health care and education for about 500,000 displaced persons in the state.
Similarly, he said the government of Kuwait has also provided a loa of $28 million at a very low interest rate to meet the needs of the vulnerable persons.
He praised the efforts of international donors and urged them never to relent in their contributions until the problems at hand abate.
In his remark, the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, stated that many Nigerians have fallen farther into poverty as a result of insecurity, which is a key cause of humanitarian crises.
He noted that it has prevented people from living their basic lifestyles and removed children from schools, but he asserted that the only places where people are starving to death are in the afflicted parts of Nigeria.
According to the NSA, those responsible for the insecurity are not fair to the country but stressed that it is a challenge the government must face.
Ribadu urged the international community to step up its humanitarian aid to Nigeria, saying that despite bearing the burden of the crisis, the nation cannot deal with it alone.
“We don’t have the capacity to do it alone. We thank those who are helping us and want them to do more,” he said.
